JUNCTION CITY, Ark. — On March 14, 2007, nearly all the 700 some-odd souls who call this flyspeck town straddling the Arkansas-Louisiana border home gathered in a small park near the high school football stadium. There, over plates of hot dogs and potato salad, they honored one of their most distinguished citizens.

Junction City's inaugural James Anderson Day was equal parts church picnic and civic celebration. Unofficially, it would not be the last.

Less than two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, and still months away from enrolling in freshman classes at Oklahoma State, the man of the hour — a tall, quiet teenager known the town over as “Humble James” — found the entire affair positively blush-worthy.

“It was nice to see how much the community thinks of you as a person,” recalled Anderson, a 6-foot-6 guard from Oklahoma State whom the Spurs selected 20th overall in the June NBA draft. “But I don't know if I deserved that.”

In Junction City, where Anderson led the Dragons to the 2007 Class 2A state championship as a senior before

March 14 — James Anderson Day — has become a de facto annual holiday, an excuse for the town to reconvene at the city park. And yet the depths of this small town's feelings for its first NBA player can't be confined by the calendar's constraints.

“In Junction City, every day is James Anderson Day,” says Jerry Brewer, the town's former mayor and public-address announcer at the high school basketball games.

In a little more than a week, Anderson will open his first NBA training camp in San Antonio, marking the culmination of a goal he set when he was just old enough to dribble. No matter how he fares as a Spurs rookie, an entire town will be watching.

Small town, big man

A mere pinprick on the U.S. map, boasting more pine trees than people, Junction City appears an unlikely birthing ground for a future NBA player.

The latest available census results, taken in 2000, peg Junction City's population at 721. More recent estimates put that number below 700.

The town's lone stoplight bisects Main Street at aptly named State Line Road, separating the Arkansas portion of town from Louisiana by a single crosswalk.

The nearest major airport is 77 miles away, in Shreveport, La. There is no Wal-Mart or movie theater. There is no Dairy Queen either, though you can buy a scoop at the J.C. Pharmacy, which — according to the marquee out front — also sells fried pies and Dragons T-shirts.

Until he left for college in the fall of 2007, Anderson had never lived anywhere else.

“It was a great place to grow up,” Anderson said. “It was hard to get into trouble, because everybody knew you.”

Anderson, 21, isn't the first NBA player to spring from the woods along the Arkansas-Louisiana border, or even the most famous. Karl Malone grew up in Summerfield, La., just 10 miles south down Highway 9. Another Hall of Famer, Willis Reed, hails from Bernice, La., 15 miles away.

A tour of Junction City's Main Street, which takes all of 90 seconds, is akin to passing through a live-action Norman Rockwell painting: a pair of filling stations. A florist. A bank. The football stadium. A post office, a café, a bingo hall.

On the eastern edge of town, across the street from the Jackpot Bingo, stands the Family Dollar, where Anderson's mother, Ira Williams, still works stocking shelves and ringing up her neighbors' purchases of toothpaste and toilet paper.

Most in Junction City figured Williams would quit the day her oldest son became a millionaire. (Anderson's father, also named James, moved to California after splitting from his mother and works as a guard at San Quentin State Prison.)

“I can't just sit around all day,” Williams, herself a former Junction City basketball player, said with a shrug. “I have to do something.”

Junction City isn't quite Mayberry of TV lore, but Andy Griffith's character, Andy Taylor, might summer here. That this place has produced an NBA player seems like something out of a too-schmaltzy-even-for-Disney movie.

“It's kind of unbelievable,” said Anderson's aunt, Gerline Coggins, a custodian for the school district. “But we know it's true.”

‘Be Like Mike'

Before he had entered kindergarten, Anderson knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“From Day 1, he said he wanted to go to the NBA,” Anderson's mother said. “It's like he spoke it into existence.”

“Everywhere you saw him, you saw a ball,” Frazier said. “He'd just be dribbling up and down the road.”

The world is full of accountants and doctors and lawyers and engineers who once dreamed of playing professional basketball. The difference, for Anderson, is that his first dream came true.

It helped that he never seemed to stop growing. The summer after his eighth-grade year, Anderson went to visit his father in California for a month.

He was 5-foot-9 when he left, 6-1 when he returned.

It never dawned on Anderson that the odds of jumping from the backwater of Junction City to the NBA's bright lights might be stacked astronomically against him. He became even more convinced in April 2007, a month after the state championship game, when the Chicago Bears selected another local schoolboy legend, Kevin Payne, in the fifth round of the NFL draft.

“When he got drafted, it was a big step to our community,” Anderson said. “It showed all the young kids your dreams can come true.”

Among those believers was Anderson.

Soon, the guy who grew up wanting to be like Mike had spawned a generation of Junction City kids who wanted nothing more than to be like him.

‘Humble James'

The official capacity of the Junction City gym is 2,000 people, nearly triple the town's population. During Anderson's senior season, when he averaged 39 points and began attracting an avalanche of college coaches to his one-stoplight hometown, it wasn't uncommon for late-arriving fans to be turned away at the door.

“When James played, he could fill the place up,” Junction City coach Joe Hammett said.

Long before Anderson was named the Big 12 Player of the Year at Oklahoma State, and certainly before the Spurs had laid eyes on him, he played his home games in a 50-year-old, barn-shaped sweatbox with no air conditioning and a low ceiling infamous for blocking half-court shots.

When Anderson was a freshman, Hammett gave him a key to the gym so he could come and go as he pleased.

But Anderson was more than just a high school jock. He was habitually on the honor roll. He served on the student council. He was quite literally a choirboy, singing tenor Sunday morning at the New Directions Church.

“He was always just ‘Humble James,'” said Janice Brewer, the town's former first lady.

On the court, Anderson cemented his Junction City legend on March 8, 2007, when he scored 43 points in the Class 2A title game against Jessieville in Hot Springs. His heroics brought home the town's first basketball championship.

That was Anderson's final game before going to Oklahoma State, but in many ways, he never left. Even today, in mid-summer with basketball out of season, Anderson's presence wafts over the place.

There is a makeshift shrine to him in the school library. His photo hangs in the school gym. So will Anderson's No. 23 jersey one day, if Hammett has his way.

“I feel like he's part of our family,” said Connie Hammett, the coach's wife, flipping through an album of personal photos. “He still comes home for Christmas. We're all so proud of him.”

Pride of Junction City

Anderson is poised to spend his life toiling in much bigger gyms than Junction City's barn. The little boy once known for dribbling down Main Street has grown into a first-round NBA draft pick.

Anderson is gone now, off to start life as a pro, and the void in Junction City is both palpable and bittersweet.

“We're proud of what he chose to be,” said Joy Mason, a teacher who twice had Anderson in history class. “We hate that he's gone, because we miss him, but we're proud of him.”

Hammett, who stepped down as the Dragons' basketball coach after Anderson graduated, jokes that the NBA will probably sell a couple hundred more satellite-TV packages in Junction City.

Townspeople already are planning caravans to see Anderson play in December when the Spurs visit Dallas, the nearest NBA city. They will probably all wear their official James Anderson Day T-shirts.

Wherever Anderson goes, whatever he does, an entire town will be watching, with pride.

“I don't think it's even sunk in yet,” Frazier said. “Seeing someone you watched grow up in the NBA ... it's amazing. It's always going to be hard to believe.”